LING 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Baffin Island, Thx, Romanization Of Japanese

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LING 1000
• Professor: Rosario Gomez

Document Summary

Not universal - 100s languages written vs 1000s languages spoken! Un - has 78 literary languages - but only 5 or 6 has international importance! Need to go to school to learn to write! Keep in mind that language is primarily an oral phenomenon~ Cave drawings (petroglyphs) = 29000~10000 years ago (cro-magnon man) Pictograms in 66000bc --> symbols "written" on tortoise shells! (as prophecies) Used wedge-shaped reed stylus to engrave characters in clay tablets. First top --> bottom, then left --> right. Content --> poems / prayers / proverbs / business transactions. Assyrians --> persians (600-400bc) --> syllabic writing (consonant+vowel = syllable)--> akkadians/hittites. Thought to have magic value --> writing name of the dead ensures eternity. Pictogram (non-arbitrary) + ideograms (bit more abstract) + some phonograms (the word! Ex: iiiii (pictogram - literal) --> 5 (ideogram - represents idea) --> North semitic --> phoenician (modern lebanon) --> sylllabic writing! Only consonants tho, in writing - vowels only when spoken.